Yesterday I said I will blog today. I lied. That itself was yesterday’s blog. The tomorrow has become today and one more blog is in order. A friend had an objection: You don’t have to blog every day. Write a blog only when you feel like it, he said.
If that is done, half the books, articles and blogs in the world would not have been written at all. An equal number or more would have remained mere concepts in the minds of people, who either did not know the art and craft of writing or lacked the patience and will to go through with it. The unwritten works could have been lost masterpieces, great ideas wasted.
Every potential writer is told that good writing is the result more of perspiration than inspiration. The habit of sitting down to write and fulfilling a target every day must be cultivated, one is told. The need to express may take the form of writing, painting or even singing. Vincent van Gogh, one of the world’s greatest painters and a trail blazer, was said to have sat down to paint every day at fixed hours and even painted on earlier paintings or made self-portraits when he could not afford new canvasses or paid models.
And those who did not write because of the lack of will outnumber those who lacked the craftsmanship or art. “Why write?”, they question, “No one reads. Who has the time? Facebook and WhatsApp have killed reading.”
When I was down in spirits thinking “no one reads”, a social media contact knocked down that argument. She said writing, being read and people buying the book are three differed things. One should write because one wants to, not because someone reads or for the article or book to be accepted.
There are several reasons for writing and someone reading or appreciating is just one of them. Picking up links from the comments on different blogs I follow, I cam across one who blogs “to overcome depression” and another because she lost a child and wants to unburden the grief. I then remembered that the blogging I stopped years ago was started again when, after 48 years of marriage, my wife passed away.
Life deals a deadly blow to many. They suffer unexpressed agony that may lead to depression and even lead to suicidal tendencies or other mental ailments. I then recalled a poem by Alfred Tennyson I read decades ago – ‘Home They Brought the Warrior Dead’. A princess whose husband meets gallant death in war was stunned when the body was brought back. “She nor swooned nor uttered a cry”. Her maids tried to make her react because “a nurse of ninety years” told them, “She must weep or she will die.” When all efforts failed, her child was brought and put in her lap. Then “Like summer tempest came the tears.” She realised that she must live – for the child.
A blogger sees the beauty of nature around him, captures it with his camera and shares the thrill. Yet another spins a poem a day – around the word suggested by the Daily Post.
Joy, not tragedy alone, may make one want to communicate.
To communicate is an essentially human need. When the cumbersome rules to shape the words into the format required for journalism or a book are removed –and blogs impose no such requirements– the writing becomes much easier. The blog may be just a few lines on some current event, an expression of some emotion aroused by the ups and downs of life, a deep, lengthy, philosophical analysis or a few words with pictures of something that enthralled or shocked the blogger who wants to share it with others. Or it may be a representation in words or pictures of the “summer tempest” of tears that saved the heart from breaking or the mind from losing its balance.
A blog, without the compulsions of commerce, is a peep into one’s heart and soul. Just tbe ‘like’ it. Or ignore it.
The ostensible reason for the digital storm is that the name happens to be that of Taimur Lang (Langda -lame- shortened. He had a deformed leg). Taimur was an Islamic invader from Mongolia who had attacked and sacked India, especially Delhi, with unequaled barbarity. Over 1.7 crore people were killed and thousands of women raped. But he was not the only one who did it. Other invaders and rulers like Ghajni, Sikandar, Babur, Tipu and Aurangazeb emulated him. Even after that the name Sikandar was given to many in India, without any protests. And yet India is home to the second largest number of Muslims in the word! To get their votes, some call India intolerant!